Case Study: US Bank × Fidelity
 

Building a white-labeled credit card experience… without breaking trust

At a glance
 

• Role: Lead UX Architect (US Bank)

• Partner: Fidelity (white-label credit card products)

• Product: Credit card application + servicing workflows (white-labeled)

• Team: 10+ engineers, PM, PO, Jr Designer, Project/Scrum Manager

• Tools: Figma (prototypes), MS Teams (workshops + testing), usability testing, stakeholder working sessions

• The hard part: Adding new regulatory requirements for small business lending demographic data collection (CFPB Section 1071) — while keeping the experience trustworthy and reusable. (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)

 
The situation

At US Bank, I worked on white-labeled credit card products.
That meant:
 

• US Bank owned the end-to-end product experience and build

• Fidelity supplied branding standards and our job was to make the experience feel like:
  “Fidelity, powered by US Bank” (clean, consistent, and trustworthy)

This wasn’t just “make it look good.” The real work was making sure the workflows held up across:
 

• Different partner branding rules

• Different legal/compliance needs

• Different user expectations (and money is one of those spaces where trust is everything)

 
The twist 

Mid-project, we needed to add new requirements tied to CFPB Section 1071 (Small Business Lending data collection and reporting). In simple terms, the rule is designed to help enforce fair lending laws and identify community needs — and it requires covered institutions to collect/report certain data for small business credit applications, including indicators for women-owned and minority-owned businesses. 

And this is where thinking through the architecture of the system becomes high-stakes:
We were asking people for personal demographic info inside a financial flow.
If we handled that wrong, we’d create fear, drop-offs, and a “nah…I’m out” moment.
The rule also includes privacy-related considerations, including shielding certain demographic data from underwriters/other roles (often discussed as a “firewall” concept).
 
The team 

As Lead UX Architect, I did my best to be a thought leader ( listener & collaborator) 

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• Partner branding expectations (Fidelity and others…)

• Internal stakeholders (product, legal, compliance)

• Dev execution (10+ engineers) and the user reality (testing + feedback)

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What I personally drove:

• End-to-end workflow design 

• Alignment sessions (internal + external)

• Prototypes for usability testing

• Design decisions around how/when to introduce sensitive demographic questions

• Building a reusable pattern we could apply across partners/products (not a one-off)

 
Our challenge

How do we collect demographic data in a credit flow without losing user trust — and still make it reusable across white-label partners?

Constraints

1. Brand constraint: Fidelity standards had to show up cleanly and consistently

2. Compliance constraint: The 1071 rule requires specific collection/reporting + privacy handling expectations (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)

3. UX constraint: The flow had to feel safe, respectful, and not like we were “profiling” the user

 
Our approach
 

1) Stakeholder alignment (internal + Fidelity)
 

We ran working sessions to lock in:

• What was required vs optional

• What legal/compliance needs are reflected in UI and copy

• Where branding could flex vs where it couldn’t

In short: we removed ambiguity before pixels — and started with the information architecture so the journey made sense end-to-end.

2) Designed a “trust-first” question experience
 

We treated the demographic questions like a mini-product inside the product.

We focused on:

• clear purpose language (why we’re asking)

• a neutral, respectful tone

• smart placement (not too early; not hidden)

• progress + control so users didn’t feel trapped

• and a path that supported “prefer not to answer” behavior (where applicable) 

 

We also made sure the pattern could scale beyond Fidelity.

3) Prototyped + tested with real users

We used:

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• Figma prototypes to simulate the full flow

• MS Teams sessions to observe confusion, hesitation, and drop-off signals

• qualitative sentiment checks like:
  “Do I trust this?” “Does this feel weird?” “Would I finish this?”
   

4) Built a reusable pattern library (In short, we created a design system)
 

We converted what worked into a repeatable pattern:

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• consistent components + logic

• partner-ready styling via tokens/brand rules

• approved copy blocks that could be reused without restarting the compliance conversation every sprint

 
 
We didn't really have KPI’s:

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• We didn’t treat compliance questions like a form dump.
  We treated it like a trust moment that needed a UX strategy that has been well considered and tested.

• We optimized for trust, not speed.
  In financial products, confidence beats cleverness.

• We designed with privacy expectations in mind.
  The rule discusses privacy interests and shielding certain demographic data from underwriters/other roles.

• We made it reusable across the portfolio. That’s what kept the design system clean and kept dev from branching into chaos.

 
Our results ( In my opinion) 
 

Here’s what we achieved (based on testing feedback/delivery outcomes):

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• Lower confusion during the sensitive-question portion of the flow

• Cleaner stakeholder alignment 

• Reusable design approach that could apply across multiple partner products

• Partner-ready experience that respected Fidelity branding while staying consistent with US Bank build standards

 
My final thoughts about this project
 

This project is one of my favorites because it’s the real job:

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• Balancing brand, compliance, engineering reality, and human trust

• Making a sensitive requirement feel like a respectful conversation and designing something reusable instead of “custom chaos.”